Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to food compositions and particularly to pseudo-loaf food compositions.
Description of Related Art
Conventional loaf-type food products are typically coagulated emulsions sold in containers bearing the shape of the loaf-type food products. Loaf-type food products are commonly used as pet foods because they are easily manufactured, readily digested by the animals, very palatable to the animals, and readily formulated to contain necessary nutrients and trace elements. A disadvantage is that these coagulated emulsions do not have a striated and chunky meat-like appearance and friable texture. However, for pet foods, a meat-like appearance and texture can greatly enhance consumer acceptability. Moreover, meat analog chunks formed by slicing a solid emulsion product into pieces can have a chewy texture which requires the animals to chew them and thereby provide the advantage of being beneficial to the animals' teeth, and this texture is lacking in known loaf-type food products.
There is, therefore, a need for new pseudo-loaf food compositions that have the appearance of loaf-type food compositions but have the eating characteristics of chunk-in-gravy food compositions.